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Kathmandu Colors

Originally uploaded by acastellano

Check out these brilliant powdered dyes! I can’t help but smile when I look at this array of luminous colors. The photographer, Andrew Castellano, did nothing on the computer to enhance this photograph.

It is strangely disorienting to finally hold my first copy of a book I have created.

So much effort, passion, love, frustration, elation, compromise and heart have gone into every choice and decision. Years of dreaming and years of physical work. At least another year of waiting while the publishers and printers do their part.

Then it arrives. No angels, no trumpets, no fanfare. Just a manilla envelope surrounding bubblewrap and a UPS label with my name on it. A sample copy. (The commercial shipment is floating over the Pacific Ocean right now.)

I open the envelope. There she is. My dream manifest. Alive, it has a body: corporeal, breathing, I can turn the pages, see all its beauty, all its flaws. 

I am thrilled and yet disoriented. The dreaming, preparing, planning, working and waiting is over. I have to compleletly change gears, change mindsets. My dream is manifest: The Beader’s Color Palette is born.

Now my role changes. I’m letting it go – sending it out into the world to let it do what it came to do: inspire people to find their color voice.

The heat of spring and summer always calls for cool palettes of blue-greens, aquas, and teals. But how about the citrus colors? Think “a roll of lifesavers”: tangerine, lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit (writing the words makes my mouth water). A fresh palette that captivates with its warmth and vitality. Try citrus colors in their pure, saturated versions, or tint them up with a little white.